[Imports] Import discussions

Alan Mintz Alan_Mintz+OSM at Earthlink.Net
Mon Jun 11 14:54:40 UTC 2012


There have been several threads about import guidelines and building 
imports lately. Still, nobody is ever concerned with the data size and 
performance issues that will surely be caused by expanded imports of 
building and lot outlines (as discussed recently for Bakersfield, 
California). Shouldn't we have a plan to deal with this before it becomes a 
bigger problem?

Personally, I wish that all those that want to import building outlines 
would first think about the existing street network (this, after all, being 
OpenSTREETMap). So much of the US is still unedited TIGER 2005 data - 
mis-aligned, poorly connected, stale-named, and missing lots of new 
construction from the peak to the end of the housing boom.

Shouldn't we endeavor to make the street network accurate before anything 
else? That's the only way to get people to actually use the map and then, 
hopefully, contribute to it. I've done years of editing in southern 
California and still have to use Bing or Google Maps when I go someplace I 
(or one of the other handful of mappers in this huge area) haven't mapped, 
just for reliability.

--
Alan Mintz <Alan_Mintz+OSM at Earthlink.net>




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